I promised to blog about the adoption process as thoroughly as I can, and since I personally couldn't find a ton of information on how a home study goes, I'm excited to share about this.
I'm sure that these vary by state, but here the home study is broken up into two parts. Today was the first part and the second part will probably be at the end of this month.
Our social worker, who I will refer to as K, came over at noon. I had spoken with her on the phone and through email several times and I let her know that I was planning to serve lunch here for the three of us. I find that food is a good ice breaker! Ha! So, I made Parmesan Chicken Salad and an Orzo salad that I'll be posting soon. She loved it and we were able to start our conversations over food which is always more relaxing in my opinion!
Basically, we talked about how we met, our dating experience, our wedding and our life up til now. We discussed our kids, their personalities, our families and their support of us with regards to adoption and why we want to adopt. We also discussed our religious background, our friends, what we do with our free time, how much Chris works, what type of work he does, and showed her our new house plans along with pictures of our new home (the framing is almost done!).
That's a lot of ground to cover! K is SO nice and made us both feel very comfortable. We were really able to open up to her and share our thoughts very honestly. After all of that, we took her on a quick tour of our home. It was way less invasive than I expected it to be, honestly. I thought we would go through every drawer and cabinet in our house, but that wasn't the case at all.
Next time, I think we will be going over anything she may have missed, or need more information on as well as doing individual interviews to talk about our childhoods. I'll be sure to share about that as well! Thank you to everyone who sent me tweets, emails, texts and Facebook messages today! We appreciated each and every one!
PS - Look what arrived tonight!! I'm having to order ALL new baby gear because we had given EVERYTHING away!!!
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